


A Drop In The Ocean

by animeXalchemist



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Falling In Love, Fantasy, Getting to Know Each Other, Lifeguard Riku, M/M, MerMay, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Multiple, mermaid au, merman sora
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-17 07:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18960718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeXalchemist/pseuds/animeXalchemist
Summary: This is a story about a lifeguard called Riku who saved a critically injured merman called Sora, and Sora subsequently taking up residence in Riku's bathtub.But, of course, it could neverjustbe about that.





	A Drop In The Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> "In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap and much more difficult to find"– Terry Pratchett

How to go about telling this tale? Or should that be telling this _tail_? For tails are certainly involved. Long, streamlined, graceful tails that cut through water like a knife through butter. But would starting with tails make any sense? That would mean focusing on Ventus, or perhaps Vanitas.

Or maybe it would mean focusing on Sora.

Tails in this tale… this tale that could start quite happily without the mentioning of tails. Perhaps it would be prudent to start with a curse, but that seems rather dark. What about beginning with the man desperate to cheat time and gain eternal life? Or is that too fantastical? How about starting with the boy who nearly drowned when he was but six years old? Ah, but then this tale would seem like a tragedy. It would seem even more like a tragedy if this story were to open by detailing the death of…

But why focus on death from the start? While certainly there is darkness and tragedy to be had, there is also laughter and love.

Yes. This tale is many things but at its core it is, ostensibly, a love story. Would it be false advertising to claim it as a romantic comedy? Or maybe it is better defined as a love story with plenty of comedy?

Until there isn’t any comedy.

Ah, but this is all getting ahead of the story. There are many ways to begin but only one chance to begin, so it must be begun properly. Or has it already begun? Is this the beginning?

No, that simply will not do. This is no way to begin a story, with silly musings about how to begin a story. How ridiculous. A beginning should entice and delight and inspire happiness along with a healthy dose of curiosity.

Ah. Well in that case, it seems then that this tale should begin thusly: by focusing in on the young man who found himself in an extraordinarily ludicrous situation. And it begins with this thought:

_‘Holy shit, there’s a mermaid in my bathtub.’_

x~x~x~x~x

**2019 ~ May ~ Destiny Islands**

_‘Holy shit, there’s a mermaid in my bathtub.’_

Okay. He needed to remain calm. There was probably a perfectly normal explanation to all of this, and a perfectly normal way to resolve it.

Riku peeked around his bathroom door once more.

Yes, there was _definitely_ a mermaid in there. Or… merman. Merperson? Oh god, now was not the time to start worrying about pronouns when there was an honest to god _mermaid_ in his _bathtub_!

Perhaps this panic attack was somewhat overdue. It wasn’t as if the merperson had just _magically_ appeared in his bathtub, because then Riku currently wouldn’t be handling this so excellently. No, Riku _himself_ had been the one to place said merperson in said bathtub, but his mind had been preoccupied more with saving the creature as opposed to questioning how the hell it actually existed.

“This is way above my pay grade,” he muttered, closing the door once more and leaning against it.

It had started off as a normal day: he woke up, made some breakfast, got dressed, all standard, normal things. And then he had gotten changed into his uniform and headed down to the beach.

Riku was a lifeguard here at Destiny Islands. The past couple of decades had seen the islands become a popular holiday destination what with their luxurious resorts and excellent marine attractions. This place was especially popular among scuba divers, and the ability to relax and lounge in the sun all day while also exploring the beautiful blue seas or go island hopping to the smaller islands dotted around the main one meant that Destiny Islands had something to offer everyone.

Riku took his job incredibly seriously but he genuinely enjoyed doing it. Spending his days on the beach, watching over the happy tourists as they splashed around, was a pleasant way to spend his time. And when he actually needed to intervene and rescue someone, well, there was no greater feeling on this earth than saving a life.

Yes, Riku was a lifeguard, and tonight the lives he guarded extended beyond humans.

Dusk had been setting in and with it the temperature was gradually falling. The beach had been deserted in favour of cocktail bars and plush hotel rooms, and Riku had been in the process of gathering his belongings together when he saw something in the distance, washed up on the shore. He had peered closer, trying to get a better look, and his heart lurched in his stomach when it looked as though a human had washed up.

And so he had run as fast as he could, the sand cool underfoot, and rushed to the aid of whoever it was.

And that was how he had discovered the merman. Perhaps his mind would have been stuck on this point had it not been for the fact that he was dreadfully injured. Barbed wire had wrapped itself around one of his arms like steel vines, cutting up the flesh so that bright red rivulets of blood were running down tanned skin. Even more barbed wire had wrapped menacingly around the creature’s torso and neck, forming a dangerous ligature.

This part of him had seemed so human. The young man was passed out, his blood mingling with the sea before the waves dragged it away. Riku had approached him carefully only to see that where there should have been legs, there was instead flesh melting into a long, elegant tail. That, too, had been cut up. Angry gashes were leaking blood at an alarming rate, and as Riku scooped the other up into his arms (and _damn_ this guy was heavy) he noticed that something had clearly taken a _bite_ out of his left tail fin.

And so he hadn’t thought twice. This creature needed urgent medical attention and it wasn’t as if Riku could take him to a hospital—or a vet?—and so he had taken him home and patched the other up, thankful for the cover of nightfall.

It was only once he had placed the unconscious merman, now bandaged up, into his bathtub for lack of any other ideas, that the gravity of the situation had hit him.

_‘Holy shit, there’s a mermaid in my bathtub.’_

Riku was pretty sure that he couldn’t Google his way out of this one.

He couldn’t have left the other to die. That was obvious. But what the heck _was_ he supposed to do with a critically injured unconscious creature of myth?

The sound of violent splashing coming from inside the bathroom snapped Riku out of his reverie, and he slowly looked to the door.

Oh crap. It sounded as if the situation had just escalated to now having to deal with a critically injured _conscious_ creature of myth.

Riku slowly edged the door open, and the frantic splashing immediately ceased the instant he locked eyes with the merman.

Bright topaz eyes widened to an impossible degree, gazing at Riku with a whole host of emotions ranging from horrified to curious. The merman gripped the edge of the bathtub, his gaze never once wavering from where they were locked onto the lifeguard.

Riku swallowed. “Uh, hi,” he said lamely, bereft of anything else to do. “My name is Riku. You were pretty badly hurt, but I cleaned up your wounds and…” he trailed off. The merman seemed mostly confused now. Riku smacked a hand to his forehead. “Oh my god, you probably have no idea what I’m saying, right? Why would a fish speak the same language as humans? I’m such an idiot.”

He approached the other carefully, and the merman never once stopped looking at him. He tilted his head to the side curiously when Riku knelt down before the tub, wondering how best to communicate with his mythical patient.

“You,” he said, pointing at the merman, “Injured.” He gestured to the cuts and bandages. “Me,” he pointed to himself, “Help.” He forced a smile onto his lips, but he mostly felt foolish. “Understand?”

The merman opened his mouth and from it issued forth watery sounds, whistles and clicks and noises that were utterly incomprehensible to Riku’s human ears.

“I…” Riku floundered for a moment, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” He sighed, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. “I want to help you,” he said, looking at the other earnestly, “But I don’t know how best to do that. In any case, even if we can’t communicate, I hope you can at least recognise that you’re safe here.”

Riku flinched back when the merman reached a hand out to him, but he did his best to relax as curious fingertips ran along his cheeks and traced his nose. The merman’s eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, running long fingers through the strands of his fringe before leaning forward over the edge of the tub and tugging at the hair tie that kept Riku’s hair up in its customary ponytail.

As Riku’s hair fell about his shoulders, the merman grinned and chucked the tie somewhere else in the bathroom before smoothing his hands over the tresses. Riku felt a little bit like a dog being petted. What was the merman doing?

The creature’s own hair was wild and stuck up despite a lifetime spent under the water. A brunette head of starfish hair. Riku’s own fingers twitched at his side, wondering if that hair was as fluffy as it looked, but he didn’t dare make any sudden movements lest he break whatever weird calm had bubbled up between them as the merman rhythmically ran fingers through his hair.

Riku’s eyes fluttered shut and he heard the merman exhale lightly before shifting around in the tub. The surface of the water was disturbed and Riku heard it splashing against the edges and that long dolphin-esque tail that was too big for the tub squeaking against the acrylic. Damp, curious hands cupped his cheeks, and when Riku opened his eyes the merman’s face was but a couple of centimetres away from his own.

Riku jolted, falling backwards and staring up at the merman who… started laughing? His chest was heaving and the sound coming from his mouth sounded a lot _like_ laughter, even if it was intermingled with a couple of clicks and high-pitched squeaks.

“It’s been a while,” a watery voice said these very distinct human language words.

Riku’s mouth fell open. “W-What?” he asked intelligently. Did… did this merman know him?

“I haven’t spoken a land language in ages.”

Ah. Right. Yeah, that made more sense. Riku shook his head, trying to wrap his head around all of this.

“So we _can_ communicate, after all?” he asked.

“Yup!” the merman grinned. “Just don’t tell anyone; we’re not really supposed to talk to humans.”

“So… you’re actually _real_?”

The merman cocked his head to the side. “Uh… yes?”

“You’re a mermaid.”

“Mer _man_ ,” the other corrected with a huff, gesturing to his torso. “Obviously.”

“O-Obviously…” Riku continued staring.

“Uh, you okay? You don’t look too good,” the merman said, and Riku let out a tiny huff of crazed laughter.

“Holy shit, there’s a merman in my bathtub,” he said.

And then promptly fainted.

x~x~x~x~x

**2019 ~ May ~ Destiny Islands**

Riku blearily blinked his eyes open when he felt water droplets splashing his face. He stared up at his bathroom ceiling and tried to remember what on earth had just happened.

For a crazy moment he recalled that there was a merman in the room with him. Maybe he should start asking for less hours? He didn’t think that his job stressed him out, but really, being responsible for so many lives probably should have taken more of a toll on him that it otherwise did.

“Hey! You’re awake!” a voice said, and Riku froze.

He slowly looked up and there was the merman he had thought was a figment of his imagination, starfish hair and bandages and all.

“Great,” he said dryly, running a hand through his hair, “I’m insane.”

What a shame. He was only the tender age of twenty-four and yet had already fallen well and truly off his rocker. Riku idly wondered when the men in white coats were going to kick his door down as he looked at the merman’s tail fins sticking up out of the water.

“Oh you are?” the merman asked. “I thought you said you were ‘Riku’. Ah, but I like ‘Insane’ better.”

“No I—wait, what? What’s wrong with my name?” Riku bristled, sitting up on the bathroom floor and staring the merman down.

Said merman pulled a face. “Well, I mean, ‘Riku’ just sounds so _earthy_.” Riku felt his eyebrow twitch. “Whereas ‘Insane’ sounds exotic, don’t you think?”

Riku considered whether or not he should submit himself to be the subject of medical research: the man who went insane and hallucinated a merman who insulted his name. Psychologists would have a field day.

“My name _is_ Riku and I think it’s just the right amount of earthy,” he replied primly. The other looked like he was about to disagree and so he quickly continued with, “What about you? You got a name?”

“Oh, right, I never introduced myself.” The merman straightened up, wincing a little against the pain he must have felt from all of those cuts and bruises. “Hi, I’m Sora!”

Riku raised an eyebrow, unable to hold back a snort of laughter.

“Hey, what's so funny?” the merman pouted.

“Sora? Really?”

“Yeah, got a problem with it?”

“Well, don’t you think that’s a bit too _airy_?” Riku smirked, feeling just a little bit of petty pride for that one.

“I think it’s just the right amount of airy,” Sora replied petulantly.

They stared at each other for a moment before they both started laughing. Riku’s laughter was rather hesitant, mind still trying to get to grips with the reality in which he now found himself, while Sora’s had that watery quality from earlier.

“Let’s try this again,” Riku said, standing up and walking right up to the bath so that he could hold out his hand. “Hi, my name is Riku. It’s nice to meet you.”

Sora beamed at him, his hand reaching out to shake Riku’s own. His palms were damp and cool. “Hiya Riku! I’m Sora. Nice to… meet you.” Sora’s hand gripped his a little tighter for a brief moment, but Riku didn’t have to wonder at the hesitation. The bathwater had already turned a light pink from where the wounds on Sora’s tail were still leaking blood.

Riku had been able to bandage the human part of Sora, but he wasn’t really sure how to tackle the tail beyond disinfecting the wounds and applying pressure until most of the bleeding had stopped. Under these circumstances, it probably _wasn’t_ nice for Sora to meet him.

“I tried to patch you up but I’ve never had to treat a merman before,” Riku explained. “If there’s anything you need just let me know.”

“Okay,” Sora murmured, withdrawing his hand until it slipped underneath the pink water.

“How,” Riku began, tentatively sitting on the edge of the tub, “How did this happen?”

Sora pursed his lips and his eyes stared at his tail where the left fluke was now missing the tip entirely. The bite had been bad enough that the little bit hanging on couldn’t be salvaged. He swallowed hard.

“S-Sorry, that’s probably… you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” Riku assured him. As much as this was a lot for Riku to take in, _Sora_ was the one who had sustained serious injuries and now found himself in a completely alien environment. The lifeguard couldn’t even begin to imagine what the other was going through right now.

Sora smiled at him gratefully before holding his left arm out, the one that had been tangled up with barbed wire. He regarded the bandages and carefully ran his fingers over the plaster on his shoulder. “Thanks,” he said. “Thank you for saving me.”

“I couldn’t just leave you there on the beach.”

“I wonder why,” Sora muttered.

Riku wanted to ask Sora what he meant by that, and part of him thought that he must have misheard him. But then there was a light growling noise and Sora was looking at him sheepishly.

“Um, Riku?” Sora began, and Riku smiled softly.

“You hungry?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay, I’ll go and—” Riku cut himself off, suddenly hit with the logistics of this. What was he going to do, feed _toast_ to a merman? “Uh, actually, what do you eat?”

Sora looked at him as if it were obvious. “Fish,” he replied and, yeah okay, Riku should have been able to figure at least that much out.

“I think I have some frozen fish fingers,” he mused aloud, seeing as that was the closest thing to fish he had in his house at the moment. He jumped a little when Sora started laughing.

“Fish don’t have fingers, silly,” he said, patting Riku’s hand as if Riku was a toddler who didn’t yet understand the way of the world. Sora looked so earnest in that moment that Riku couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, it’s like... we make fingers out of fish,” he tried to explain. This thought seemed to simultaneously horrify and intrigue Sora as he gasped out loud.

“Why would you _do_ that?” he asked with wide eyes, as if Riku had been the one to personally invent fish fingers.

“I… you know, I have no idea,” Riku replied once he thought about it. The concept really didn’t make all that much sense.

Sora’s stomach growled again, but the hesitant look he shot Riku made it clear that fish fingers weren’t something to be considered.

Riku sighed.

“…You ever heard of chicken?”

x~x~x~x~x

**1703 ~ February ~ Destiny Islands**

The sun reflecting off of the ocean’s surface bathed the entire island in a brilliant rainbow of pastel colours, pinks and oranges and yellows. And yet the picturesque sight no longer held any joy for one young man in particular, who stood on the very edge of the island where it melted into the sea and gazed longingly out at the horizon. A sigh escaped his lips.

“This place is just too small,” he murmured.

The sound of footsteps, muffled by the sand, grew ever louder. The young man did not turn to see to whom they belonged, for he knew the sound of that gait by heart.

“I thought I would find you out here,” the newcomer said, tone painted with amusement. “Thinking about escaping the island again, Xehanort?”

Xehanort chuckled and turned to face his childhood friend. “Do not act like you are not dying to see the world beyond that horizon, Eraqus.”

“Well you have certainly got me there,” Eraqus laughed, standing by Xehanort’s side and looking out to the sea. “There is only so much I can read in books before my curiosity to experience these places for myself becomes almost unbearable.”

“One day we shall set sail and seek to uncover all that the world has to offer.”

Eraqus let out a low whistle. “All of it, huh? I should think that we do not have enough time to uncover quite that much.”

“Then we shall make that the first thing that we seek,” Xehanort said decidedly. Eraqus sent his best friend a questioning look, and Xehanort responded by placing a determined hand on his shoulder. “All things have their secrets. Time is surely no exception. Unravelling the secrets of time so that we are no longer bound by it… it strikes me as the most logical place to start.”

“Unbinding ourselves from time?” Eraqus turned to face Xehanort fully. “Is this why you have been spending countless hours in the library recently? Have you truly found a way to cheat time?”

A slow, languid smile spread across Xehanort’s lips as he gazed into those grey eyes that possessed a wisdom far beyond their years. “For now, let us just say that I have a theory.”

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings everyone. For those of you wondering why I'm not working on AWKIF, it's because I was informed that MerMay was a thing. So of course my mind went crazy and conjured up this entire AU. Initially inspired [ by this artwork](https://mobile.twitter.com/kipskiff/status/1123319099801522176?s=19&fbclid=IwAR2ESyfJBU4qDzjb7uNDVt3NNZzLPAc_rwYMyMh0VRJ3Rwy920WbW0K0t-o%E2%80%9D%20rel=) until, as with most things I do, it descended into chaos.
> 
> I'm playing around somewhat with style in this fic, so please let me know what you think. I wanted to at least get this first chapter out before May was over so I didn't feel like a complete failure. Shout-out to [ Chocolatepup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocolatepup) for making this a reality by advising my indecisive arse. 
> 
> Merry MerMay, and may your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness~


End file.
